Even if your company offers the best service or product in the world, no one will know about it unless you market it properly. How do you break through and convince the audience that your work is worth their time? What's the best tactics on improving your Google presence? What are the greatest mistakes you can make on your own website? We sit down with marketing guru, Dean Heasley for a lesson on how to successfully use local search strategies to achieve success.

I'm not paying myself to say no. And I'm definitely not getting paid to tell myself no. - Dean Heasley

Takeaways

• Three times the amount of people will see your Google My Business page than your actual website. Work on it to make it presentable.
• Just ask your clients to give you Google reviews - and always make sure to respond to them and be proactive in communication.
• Local directories are one of the main ways in which Google recognizes consistency and authority. Learn how to dominate them.

We kicked off this episode with talking about Dean's background in marketing and how he found his calling in the unlikely business of selling elevators. We then talked about the steps you can take to improve your presence on Google and the importance of reviews. Dean explained why reputation and reviews are everything when it comes to marketing locally. Dean then shared his favorite tool for getting more local visibility, AdviceLocal - and explained how it works and how it can help any business that feels a bit stuck. We then talked about our pet peeves when it comes to online and digital marketing. Finally, Dean finished off with his favorite marketing mantra: that nobody's paying him to say no.

We also discussed:

• Using your Google My Business account as a game-changer
• Advice for technophobes, who want to grow their business locally
• Getting reviews from happy customers
• How a business without many reviews can work towards a good reputation
• What makes a good-looking, functional website
• The strong relationship between offline and online marketing

In today's day and age, being a technophobe isn't an excuse for not utilizing effective digital marketing techniques. Make sure you pick the right methods to target your local market. Take some time to work on your Google My Business page. Even if it seems like a tedious task, it will pay off in the future as more and more customers find your business through that page. If you're wondering whether to choose between two things - like web forms vs. emails on a website - the easy way is to go for both. That way you're giving your audience more choice, which instills confidence and builds rapport from the get-go. Finally, always keep your communication channels open and make it obvious on your page how customers can contact you.

Guest Bio

Dean Heasley is the CEO of Nashville Marketing Systems. Before his break in marketing, Dean spent a decade in national sales in the elevator industry. Most of his employers looked to him for marketing advice even though he was on the business development side. He's been consulting in one form or another since 2005. Dean's niche - elevator sales - is his specialty and he truly enjoys the challenges, the travel, and mostly, the customers. His sales philosophy is that he works for the customers, not for his employer. Find out more about Dean and his groundbreaking marketing at nashvillemarketingsystems.com